Serial Killers Down Through the Years

Serial Killers Down Through the Years

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Nov 12 09 10:33 PM

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Serial Killers Down Through the Years

Anthony Sowell was charged with five counts of aggravated murder Nov. 4, 2009, and ordered held without bail at a Cleveland, Ohio, jail. That same day, though,
police said they had found at least 10 bodies and the skull of another body at his home and were prepared to take apart the house to look for more potential
victims. Cleveland Police Department Chief Michael Grath told reporters, "It appears that this man had an insatiable appetite that he had to
fill."

If convicted, Sowell would join a long list of serial killers who have made headlines over the years. Some of the most notorious follow. (Mark Duncan/AP Photo)

Time magazine called him "handsome and cultured and charming," but to police and his victims' families, Ted Bundy, left,
was evil incarnate. Accused of up to 36 murders across the country, Bundy, a former law school student, was said to strangle and mutilate his victims and
then sleep next to the corpses. He was convicted of the brutal 1978 beating deaths of four sorority women at Florida State University. He served as his own
attorney at the bizarre trial in Miami, which was one of the first to be televised. He was executed in 1989 at the age of 43. The exact number of his
victims will never be known. (AP Photo)

David Berkowitz terrorized New York City between 1976 and 1977, when he killed six people. He became a media sensation when he sent
a couple of cryptic notes to newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin. After killing a young couple who had been making out in a car in Queens, Berkowitz left
the New York Police Department a note at the scene that declared, "I am a monster, I am the Son of Sam." He told police after his arrest that a
neighbor's barking dog was ordering him to kill. He is serving a life sentence. (AP Photo)

Aileen Wuornos was executed in 2002 in Florida after being convicted of killing one man and pleading no contest to the killings of
five others. Abandoned by her parents and pregnant by age 14, she claimed to have killed in self defense and gained some supporters. She was portrayed
by actress Charlize Theron in the 2003 movie, "Monster." (Doug Engle/AP)

Dubbed the Night Stalker Richard Ramirez, is awaiting execution in San Quentin State Prison in California after he was convicted in 1989 on 43 counts,
including 13 murders. The killings occurred over 14-month period that ended in August 1985. His victims were often shot, stabbed, mutilated and raped.
He attracted several groupies during his trial, marrying one, and was said to be a Satanist, reminding many of the circus that surrounded the trial of
Charles Manson. (AP Photo)

Convicted child molester Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested in July 1991 after police in Milwaukee, Wis., said he lured at least 17 young men to his home and
then killed, dismembered and cannibalized them. One victim, a 14-year-old Laotian boy, escaped, was found by police but returned to Dahmer's home
after the killer convinced police it was just a lover's quarrel. After Dahmer's arrest, police found the boy's skull in his house. In 1991,
Dahmer was sentenced to nearly 1,000 years in jail, but he was killed in prison by an inmate in 1994. (Eugene Garcia/AFP/Getty
Images)

John Muhammad, left, and his teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, were convicted for the October 2002 "D.C. Sniper" shooting spree that left
10 people dead in and around the Washington, D.C., area . Many of the victims were shot at random while sitting in or near their cars, creating anxiety
for millions of commuters. Malvo is serving a life sentence. Muhammad was sentenced to death, but his lawyers have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt
his execution, which was scheduled for Nov. 10, 2009, in Virginia (Jahi Chikwendiu/Shawn Thew/AFP/Getty Images)

The so called Green River Killer Gary Leon Ridgway, left as many as 90 women, mostly prostitutes, dead across Washington state in the 1980s and 1990s,
prosecutors said. Most of the victims were strangled. Though Ridgway had been considered a suspect as far back as 1983, police were unable to charge
him until Nov. 30, 2001, when DNA evidence they had acquired in 1984 linked him to four victims. In 2003, he pleaded guilty to 80 counts of aggravated
murder in exchange for a sentence of life in prison. (Elaine Thompson-Pool/Getty Images)

Like the Green River Killer, Dennis Rader baffled police during a 17-year murder spree in and around Wichita, Kan., that ended in 1991. He dubbed
himself BTK, which he said stood for "bind, torture, kill." Police said they found hundreds of pictures of women and girls in his house, with
notes about his sexual fantasies. In 2005, he was sentenced to 10 consecutive life sentences, one for each of his victims. (Larry
W. Smith/AFP/Getty Images)

One of America's worst serial killers, John Wayne Gacy was convicted in 1980 for the killings of 33 people, mostly young men and boys. Most of his
victims were found buried under his house in suburban Chicago. Prosecutors said he would pick up his victims, many of whom were male prostitutes, in
his car and take them to his home to be killed. Gacy was executed in 1994. (Tim Boyle/Des Plaines Police Department)

In September 2000, Dr. Michael Swango was convicted of killing three of his patients at a Long Island, N.Y., hospital in the early 1990s, but law
enforcement officials said he may have killed between 30 and 60 people, both before and after the Long Island deaths. A series of mysterious deaths
linked to Swango remain unsolved, some of which occurred while he was a medical student at Southern Illinois University and later at Ohio State
University Hospital, when he was a surgical resident. Using fake identities and diplomas, he continued killing, investigators said, after being fired
from previous jobs under clouds of suspicion. He is serving a life sentence in New York. (Ed Betz/AP Photo)

That DC sniper was executed last week. His intense desires were not sexual however.

Bundy and Gacy were also executed for their crimes.

Dahmer was killed in prison by someone he couldn't drug and handcuff too easily. Just as he had snuck up behind that teenager and hit him over the head
with a barbell, he himself experienced this same fate.

Berkowitz and Ramirez had a connection with Satanism. Berkowitz had gotten involved with some sort of satanic cult in the New York area. He said he felt his
own identity slip away as some other force entered him.

The Berkowitz case was very sad not only for those he killed but the others who survived with terrible injuries due to the high caliber weapon he used.

Ramirez had a pentagram tattoo on his hand as this photo shows. He was a throat slasher and viscious monster. I don't imagine having the throat slashed
feels too good.

There was a guy down in San Diego named David Allen Lucas who killed people that way. He went over to this house to check out some lawn furniture that was
being sold and ended up slashing both the mother and three year old son. When he pulled the knife out of his pocket he accidentally dropped a slip of paper
that had 'Love Insurance' written on it.

Cary Stayner, the Yosemite killer, also slashed the throat of one of those girls he killed. That was a weird case because years earlier his brother became
famous after being abducted and then finally escaping from a child molester. The brother was later killed in a motorcycle accident I think.

Sewell is the new kid on the block. Perhaps over time he will join the list of the elite killers.

Dennis Rader, the self proclaimed 'BTK Killer' was a very strange case. He aspired to join that exclusive club of murderous psychopaths and was
disappointed when the press didn't give him an interesting nickname. So he made up his own nickname. He viewed the entire situation a sort of cat and
mouse game with the police.

Rader said he was under the control of 'Factor X'. This is his term for that perverse, evil force which consumes and ultimately destroys these people.

Rader took the dead body of one of his victims into his church and posed it in various sexual positions. He was definitely making a statement there.

Dr. Swango slowly poisoned his wife I think until she finally just committed suicide. He felt an intense need to poison people. He enjoyed it.

Jeff Marzano

Love Insurance

When a suspect confesses to a brutal double-murder, police think they have their man… But sometimes truth
and justice are elusive at the Scene of the Crime.

May 24, 1979. The bodies of 31 year-old Suzanne Jacobs, and her three year-old son, Colin, are found in
the bedroom of their East San Diego home, their throats slashed to the bone. At the crime scene, Homicide Detectives Bill Green and Gary Gleason find several
strands of human hair clutched in Suzanne's hand, a set of bloody boot prints leading away from the bodies, and a bloody note with the hand written words
"Love Insurance."

The evidence, which would surely hit a forensic jackpot today, leaves Green and Gleason with little to go
on in 1979. For the next two years Detective Green pursues the case, still hoping to bring the Jacobs family killer to justice. In October of 1981 he catches
the break he's been hoping for. Two men from Alabama had told police that they picked up a hitchhiker who claimed that he "cut off people's
heads" in a town east of San Diego. His name was Johnny Massingale. It took Green another two years to find Massingale, but, when he did, Massingale
confessed to the slayings. In early 1984, Massingale was extradited to San Diego.

At the same time that Massingale was in jail awaiting trial, a rash of slashing murders began to plague
San Diego. Between June and November of 1984, four women and one child were attacked and left for dead. Miraculously one of the women survived and gave a
detailed description of her assailant. All of the crime scenes were riddled with evidence, but investigators had trouble connecting a single suspect to what
they were sure was a serial slasher. Then, in December of 1984, police received a tip that led them to the door of David Allen Lucas, a 29-year-old carpet
cleaner from East San Diego. "The puzzle pieces just started falling into place," said San Diego DA Dan Williams. Hair & blood samples, footprint
analysis and the dental imprint from an apple core left at one of the victim's homes all pointed to Lucas. They had their man.

But the M.O. in the David Allen Lucas murders was identical to that of the killer of Suzanne and Colin
Jacobs. In a matter of weeks, Johnny Massingale was to stand trial for the brutal murders -- his taped confession sure to condemn him to
death.

Will investigators put two and two together before it's too late? If Massingale is set free, will the
forensic evidence place David Allen Lucas at the Jacobs house 5 years earlier? And what did the words on the"Love Insurance" note mean? The puzzle
all comes together, piece by piece, when we arrive at the Scene of the Crime…

Thankyou for posting this Jeff. You certainly have a handle on all these predators and thensome. Im posting over
an article on John Norman Collins. This young man was far worse than Ted Bundy and his crimes started from nowhere and from no one to influence him. When you
read about the viciousness of his killings and how henious they are you'll know what I mean. We have a coverage of him on the sexual predators thread.

The "Michigan
Murders", as they came to be called by various media sources and locals, were a series of highly publicized killings in the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area of Southeastern Michigan
between 1967 and 1969 that terrified Washtenaw County for over two
years.

The murders began with Eastern Michigan University student Mary Fleszar on July 10, 1967. Her body was found on August
7 on an abandoned farm a few miles north of where she disappeared. It had multiple stab wounds and was missing her hands and feet. John Norman Collins showed
up at the funeral home with a camera, claiming to be a press photographer, requesting to take pictures of the deceased. He was asked to leave by funeral home
personnel.

Almost one year later, on July 6, 1968, student Joan Schell was found dead in Ann Arbor with multiple stab
wounds. Schell was from Plymouth, Michigan and had just moved into a
house on Emmett Street in Ypsilanti. She had last been seen on July 1 with John Norman Collins, a failing student at Eastern Michigan University who had
recently been evicted from the Theta Chi fraternity. Collins was living directly across
the street from her at 619 Emmett. When questioned, Collins claimed he was 'with my mama' at her house in Center Line, Michigan - just north of the Detroit border - at the time. Police took him at his
word.

In late March 1969, Jane Mixer was found in Denton Cemetery, just off of Michigan Avenue, a few miles east of
Ypsilanti, in Wayne County. A law student at the University of Michigan, she had been shot and strangled. Her shoes and
a copy of Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22 were placed by her side. Initially
her death was thought to be related to this sequence of homicides; however, in 2005, 62-year-old Gary Leiterman, a former nurse, was convicted of murder in the
death of Jane Mixer.[1][2]

On March 26, 1969, 16-year-old Maralynn Skelton was found dead, her body badly beaten, though there was some
speculation that it might have been a drug-related murder not linked to Collins. Coincidentally Skelton frequently hung out at an apartment next door to one
where Collins spent time, which was occupied by a friend of Collins. About three weeks later, 13-year-old Dawn Basom was found dead by strangulation after
disappearing the previous evening. She was last seen walking along a dirt road where Collins rode his motorcycles on a daily basis. University of Michigan
graduate student Alice Kalom was found in a field with her throat cut, stab wounds, and a gunshot to the head. The public outcry was increasing, and the
psychic Peter Hurkos was brought in to help, but proved to be of very little
help.

Soon the police had yet another body on their hands, student Karen Sue Beineman, who went missing on July 23,
1969, and was discovered a few days later, strangled and beaten to death. This was the killer's downfall. While he was waiting on Beineman the day she
disappeared, an older female manager of a wig shop had gotten a good look at the man seated on his motorcycle up on the sidewalk-at Beinemen's request.
Beineman reportedly told the woman, "I've got to be either the bravest or the dumbest girl alive because I've just accepted a ride from some
guy". He was the previously mentioned John Norman Collins, who was subsequently taken into police custody but again denied having any involvement in the
killing.

During the investigation police discovered Collins was considered to be "oversexed" and that he had
an extensive history of sexual harassment and violence against women. He had once beaten his own sister so badly that
she was admitted to a Detroit Emergency Room and subsequently hopitalized. He had long been obsessed with mutilation and excessive gore. Collins was
"positively identified" by the store managers as well as another young co-ed he had attempted to 'pick-up' earlier the same day. Tests showed
that hairs found attached to Beineman's underwear matched those found at the home of Collins's uncle in Ypsilanti. Investigators also found a
bloodstain on the washing machine in the basement of the house and matched it to Beineman's blood type. Collins was caring for the German Shephard and
house of Corporal David Leik - his uncle Dave - while the family was on vacation up
north at the time of Beineman's murder. The Leik family's next-door neighbor heard the tortured screams of a young female on the evening of July 23,
1969 and several days later another neighbor witnessed Collins leaving his uncle's home with a deluxe laundry detergent box. A roommate of Collins at the
Emmett Street boarding house testified to having seen missing items from the murder victims in the same laundry box inside Collins's bedroom. He was also
intimidated into concealing a gun and ammunition belonging to Collins. Collins's uncle was a Michigan State Trooper and brought his numerous suspicions about his then-23-year-old nephew to the
attention of his superiors, which ultimately led to Collins' arrest and incarceration.

John Norman Collins went to trial, and on August 19, 1970, was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for Beinemen's brutal slaying. There was a grand jury indictment against him for the murder of a young
girl in Monterey, California named Roxie Phillips who had
been seen with Collins while he was on vacation there. Upon leaving her house to mail a letter, she was given a ride from Collins and several days later her
tortured body was found in Monterey Bay. Despite his endeavor to scrub the vehicle
spotless, a piece of the fabric matching her dress was found in Collins' Oldsmobile upon his return to Michigan. California ultimately declined to
extradict Collins.

In the early 1980s, Collins legally changed his last name to Chapman, his mother's maiden name. She passed
away in 1988. Many sources who knew the convicted killer said it was Collins desire to be associated in the public's mind with Mark David Chapman. He applied numerous times to be transferred to a Canadian
prison. The requests were all denied.

Collins is now in his mid-sixties and was last known to be serving his sentence in the Marquette Branch Prison
in Marquette, Michigan in the Upper Peninsula.

Hi Jeff I'm thinking this is a partner in crime thing going on here? Very interesting. Saying this could be a couple of boys too. The Hillside stranglers
scared me back then and still do. It was their method in torturing. I remember having had posted pictures crime scene pics, only so people could see how
depraved they were but they were taken down , I didnt want to violate anyones rights, especially the victim.